great measures of peace and adjustment of all the sectional issues then existing.

But there are terrible accusations that these compromises were infamous and inhuman, that they allowed the spread of human slavery, and caused the restoration of slaves to bondage! But these compromises settled the question of boundary and abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia. This much good is undisputed; while the rendition of slaves and the waiving of the Wilmot proviso are the terrible accusations of that time. And why apply the Wilmot proviso! What good could it then do, when there was not a foot of territory but was fixed by an irrepealable law? Indeed, every inch of the territory about which was the main struggle was already free by Mexican emancipation, and if not by that law, still it was completely free upon the recognized principle that slavery was local and could not exist except by positive law. This compromise forbid all intervention or disturbance of this status until the territories should seek to be admitted as states, and so there was every probability, which amounted to a certainty, that, under this compromise of 1850, the territories would come in as free states, just like California, then seeking admission into the Union. A northern congress extended this principle of non-intervention over all the territories that might stay the rebellion and appease the South. But it was too late. The winds were up and the tempest of revolution was sweeping along. It was then too late to consider, and internal strife went on because the people had not seen clearly the dangers of this struggle. Again, the constitution made by thirteen slave states in 1788 demanded the rendition of escaped slaves; and this requisition had been provided for by the enactment of the first congress, and which had been recently made wholly ineffectual by northern state legislatures, so that for some years there had been no law to recover slaves under the constitution. The compromise of 1850 succeeded this; and all the world fell to denouncing the compromise of 1850 instead of correcting any more errors that this

fugitive slave law may have contained. Indeed, the errors were slight, and the infamy of the law was that it gave effect to a clause of the constitution which was repugnant to humanity and the tastes of men. So it was in Europe that these compromises became odious, as men would not give sufficient weight to the fact that such a law was necessary to carry out the constitution and to keep the faith of that compact. But California as a free state, and the abolition of the slave trade at the seat of the federal government, were parts of these great measures of peace; and so the men who made the compromise accomplished just what was absolutely essential to the peace of America.

It was also said that the slave struggle was not very alarming and no fears need be entertained for the Union! Ten years later and the folly of all this talk was seen by Messrs. Seward and Lincoln when they too had become "union savers," and found no hope except in the stern realities of war. History is philosophy teaching by examples, but these examples, when purchased at the price we have recently paid, ought to be written imperishably over the doors of the capitol in letters of iron, that timely concessions may prevent revolutions and save nations. But these dangers to the Union could not be discovered and realized by the great body of the people, and hence the best meaning never condemned the peace measures, and talked themselves and the country into a war at the end of the eight years after Clay and Webster had been laid in their graves. Men forgot or did not comprehend the nature of a political or moral revolution that had been brought upon the country by forty years of divergence and fanaticism. It finally became a struggle of power and interest in the nation, and the weak fibres that held the opposing sections together gradually gave way one after another, until 31,000,000 of men rose up in arms to cut each other's throats.

Thus Henry Clay of all men in his time first comprehended the magnitude of this danger, and by his self-imposing genius prepared and carried though to the successful settlement the

great compromise of 1850. This, in our judgment, is the greatest act of Mr. Clay, and it has hardly been equalled in the annals of statesmanship; for these compromises were purchased by the price of a long and terrible struggle, where eloquence and patriotism finally won the day. Chatham, Fox, and Burke sought in a former age to save the British empire and preserve the American colonies; but they were too weak to overcome the fatuity of the court, lead on by a resolute but short-sighted ministry, although they postponed that calamity about ten years. About this time a great statesman in France foresaw that if monarchy should stand long, it would be because certain reforms must be made to save its overthrow. Turgot's warnings were unheeded, and in an age after, the revolution of 1789 broke out, and ended only in 1815. Cicero, Cato, and Brutus saw the approaching fall of Rome, and they leaped into the chasm and perished with it. But these examples will ever remain as mournful instructions upon the weakness of states and the blindnesss of men to impending danger. However, we must repeat these melancholy examples of human waywardness, until mankind becomes sensible to the dangers inherent in all great states, and thus guard and conserve them. In this connection we must not forget that Seward and Chase in their young ambition disregarded the supreme welfare of the nation in 1850, and Seward was forced in after years to renounce that extreme policy which he had so long pursued and accept the spirit of conciliation amidst the frightful ruins of belligerent states.

But it is said that human slavery by pursuing a sectional policy was destroyed. Certainly there is some compensation growing out of every evil course among nations, and this riddance of slavery is our compensation. But what a frightful war accomplished this; and it is barely possible that we do not yet see all the evils of this conflict. So far will the nation pronounce that it was best that Yancy and Toombs should precipitate the South in revolution, and was it well that the North should have pursued such an extreme policy

that revolution became possible? We rather give our voice to nationality and peace exemplified in the sacrifices and spirit of Clay, who sought to allay all sectional strife and thereby save the country from this frightful war. Compromise was peace, and sectionalism was war. Clay embodied the one, and Jefferson Davis exemplified the other. Davis's course broke up the Union and destroyed slavery. But who will say that secession was wise and good. Again, Mr. Clay took the lead in the compromise of 1820, whereby human slavery was prohibited to the north of 36° 30". That was the first and only original restriction upon slavery under the constitution; and though it was first suggested by Mr. Thomas, senator from Illinois, yet it never could have been carried through except by the statesmanship of Mr. Clay. So we say, in this one act of legislation Mr. Clay set back the spread of human slavery and converted an empire of slaves into free territory. This, in practical effect, is next to the ordinance of 1787, framed by Jefferson, and it gives Mr. Clay an equal fame, for Mr. Jefferson's ordinance was not established by himself or at the time he brought it forward for adoption. We know it has not been usual to regard this compromise of 1820 as a beneficent measure, but really it is the only time that the South lost any slave territory under the constitution. The number of free states which arose out of that compromise proves its beneficence to freedom; for slavery existed by law, under the Louisiana purchase, and it covered all the then territory belonging to us west of the Mississippi. Thus we say that we are largely indebted to Mr. Clay for this extension of free territory, and it was the only free territory that came from foreign acquisition, until the Mexican war brought a very large accession, which the South sought in part to convert into slave territory, and which contest ended in war. So Mr. Clay accomplished something for freedom at home as well as liberty abroad.

Mr. Clay effected another compromise and adjustment in 1833, when South Carolina set up the standard of nullification

of the tariff laws, and passed her ordinance of nullification, and assembled her gallant sons to defend by open arms the asserted rights of that wayward state. The president issued his proclamation to South Carolina, and finally congress passed the Force bill to enable Jackson to sustain the laws and to suppress this insurrection in South Carolina. The issue seemed made, and General Scott was in possession of Charleston; but at this critical juncture, so big with the fate of America, Mr. Clay, as the great founder of the American system of protection to labor, came forward with his measures of peace, by which that tariff did gradually go down till it reached 20 per cent. This measure was carried, and Jackson and South Carolina sheathed their swords. Thus it is that Henry Clay always appeared as the great pacificator of his time, and he never failed to carry these measures of peace, although opposed to the bitter end. Webster threw himself against this compromise of 1833, and though not in public life, he opposed the slave adjustment of 1820, in reference to the admission of Missouri. Finally, when he reached a greater experience, he saw more clearly the danger of extreme courses, and gave himself fully to the compromise of 1850, as Luther did to the Reformation. Mr. Clay had, in 1848, utterly refused to support General Taylor, because his whiggery was not very pronounced. And so it is significant that the two great leaders of the whigs were so frequently put aside for the presidency in consequence of the supposed military availibility of Harrison, Taylor, and Scott; and in this manner many of the ardent friends of Clay and Webster finally went to the democrats in 1852. The whigs had seen the success of General Jackson, and were seized with the idea that some general would give them success over the democrats in these great elections, and they did actually win two terms under Harrison and Taylor before the party broke up in 1854 and 1855, after the final repeal of Mr. Clay's compromise of 1820.

So it may be said that the Clay compromises are all ended,—that of 1833, by its own terms, lasted but twenty